1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a vehicle headlamp.
2. Related Art
In some vehicle headlamps, a lamp unit having a light source is disposed in a lamp body which is defined by a cover and a lamp housing.
In some of lamp units of vehicle headlamps, a projection lens for projecting light emitted from a light source and an irradiating direction changing mechanism for changing the irradiating direction of light projected by the projection lens are provided in a lamp unit (for example, refer to Patent Literature 1). The projection lens is held by a lens holder, and the lens holder is held on a frame (a bracket).
As such an irradiating direction changing mechanism, there are, for example, a level controlling mechanism and a swivel controlling mechanism. The level controlling mechanism controls the orientation of an optical axis of a headlamp which changes according to the weight and position of a load carried by a vehicle. The swivel controlling mechanism controls the orientation of the optical axis of the headlamp so as to follow the traveling direction of the vehicle.
As the irradiating direction changing mechanism, for example, an actuator is provided which has a drive source and an output portion which is operated by means of the driving force of the drive source. The output portion is connected to a frame (a bracket) which holds a lens holder and a reflector.
When the frame is operated by the driving force of the actuator, the lens holder and the reflector which are held on the frame are operated in association with the operation of the frame, whereby the optical axis direction of the projection lens is changed to execute the leveling operation and/or the swiveling operation of the headlamp.
[Patent Literature 1] JP-A-2011-150993
In the vehicle headlamp described above, although the lens holder holding the projection lens is mounted on the frame (the bracket), since other constituent components than the projection lens and the lens holder such as a light source are mounted on the frame, depending upon the arrangement of these components, the number of constituent components is increased, leading to fears that the attempt to reduce the size of the headlamp is interrupted.